French Unions Call National Strike March 28 in
Defense of Younger Workers, Demand Withdrawal of Law Allowing Bosses to Fire
Young Workers “At Will”

by George Saunders

On Monday night, March 20, French
trade union leaders called for a national day of strike action Tuesday, March 28,
against Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s proposed
“youth employment” law.

Reporting from Paris for
the Guardian (London) on March 21, journalist Angelique Chrisafis
wrote: “After protests brought up to 1.5 million people onto the streets across
France on Saturday, unions had given Mr. de Villepin until
yesterday afternoon to withdraw his ‘first employment contract.’”

But Villepin
insists his law is “essential to win the fight against youth unemployment.”
Angelique Chrisafis writes that youth unemployment is
“at 23–50% in someParis suburbs—among the worst in Europe.”

Chrisafis continues: “It was not
clear how many workers would join strikes and the general ‘day of protest’ set
for March 28, but if rail, metro, and air transport workers joined forces, it
could cause widespread disruption.”

Meanwhile students
continued strikes and blockades at nearly 70 schools and universities
throughout France. Student protesters announced they would take to the streets
again on Tuesday, March 21, and on Thursday, March 23.

Cops Seriously
Injure Union Member

Chrisafis reports that a 39-year-old
trade union member was in a coma after being injured by police who attacked
youthful protests in Paris’s Place de la Nation. The Sud-PTT
union said their member had been “violently trampled by a police charge.”

Chrisafis reminds readers that mass
workers’ protests in 1995 proved to be the undoing of another conservative
prime minister, Alain Juppé, who lost elections two
years later.

She concludes by pointing
out that “paradoxically” Villepin claims his law
establishing the contrat de première embauche, or CPE, would reduce youth unemployment—by making it easier to
fire young workers, under 26. “He hopes this will spur
employers to take young people on, knowing they will not need to offer long-term
security. But critics within his own ruling UMP have
dubbed the CPE commentperdreune election, or how to lose an election.”

In this situation, revolutionary
socialists have an opportunity to demand radical solutions to the jobs crisis
as an alternative to Villepin’s “paradoxical” claim
to fight unemployment by letting bosses fire workers more easily. For example, the
demand for a shorter work week with no reduction in pay, to spread the work, could
be revived, along with the call for a massive public works program, to create
jobs and provide needed public services. More than that: nationalization of
major industries under workers control could start to make the economy work for
people instead of victimizing people.